Back in May, I read this great article about how to market financial services to millennials. Written by Jeff Fromm and Jason Parks, executive VPs at Barkley, this article suggests that the secret to marketing to this segment is the consideration of how exactly they grew up.
Fromm and Parks make a fantastic point. Out of the 80 million millennials in the U.S., half of the millennials have children and each day 10,000 millennial moms over the age of 25 give birth. Parenthood changes a person’s priorities. If you’re a parent, you know how true this is. While financial planning, estate planning, and insurance may not have been a hot topic for this “irresponsible” generation before, it sure will become an important subject as they plan and provide for their offspring.
Millennials are at a wealth disadvantage — they are making less money than their parents were at the same age. Although millennials have education, they also have debt as a result of that education. Fromm and Parks explained that although brand loyalty was high for millennials pre-kids, once they become parents, brand loyalty dramatically shifted to value brands like Dollar General and Wal-Mart. Given past events (dot-com bust, September 11th, housing crisis, Iraq and Afghanistan wars), millennials are “more likely than other generations to believe that working hard and saving/living frugally are the ways to achieve success.”
Fromm and Parks say that to win with Millennials in the marketing of financial services, companies must…
1. Embrace disruptive schemas that align to millennial values.
2. Create tools that simplify millennials’ life and financial planning needs.
3. Act in a more authentic and transparent way.
4. Curate content that helps millennials make more informed decisions.
5. Engage millennials as your brand partner by allowing them to co-create new products, customer delivery channels, and more.
Marketing financial services is not an easy thing, but marketing to millennials is even more challenging.
As marketing teams consider the millennials’ life experiences, they will be able to create more compelling campaigns and more valuable products.
Best,
Bob Fladung
Director of Advertising
INO.com, Inc.